


Une Étoile Filante

by sequence_fairy



Series: She Sells Sanctuary [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: She didn’t just lose the Doctor when she fell through the Void; she lost the TARDIS, she lost the reaches of the universe, she lost the feeling of her feet on new ground.





	Une Étoile Filante

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com). The theme for the drabble that week was 'meteor shower'.

Rose is lying on her back, staring up at somewhat unfamiliar stars. The orbit of this planet regularly takes it through the tail of a comet and the inhabitants are treated to one of the most spectacular displays this side of The Milky Way. The Doctor brought her here when she was still all human and practically unchanged by the constant bombardment of cosmic and chrono particles all travellers of time and space are susceptible to.

She remembers he explained the mechanics and the science, but that his voice washed over her and she only picked up bits and pieces, enthralled as she was by the way the meteors were so bright and so many that their light cast flickering shadows over their faces.

Since then though, she’s become Time and Space made flesh and bone, and she’s seen more than any one person ought to have seen - both wonderful and terrible - and she can feel the changes all of that has wrought upon her. The Torchwood doctors say she’s not quite human, that something happened to her DNA when she swallowed the heart of the TARDIS, that something more happens every time she jumps. She’s being undone, her DNA mutating to try and save her but not fast enough.

Now, she’s here alone. She’s noticed that her jumps often have her landing in places she’d come before, because the signature of the TARDIS still catches it’s sensors. The cannon lies forgotten on the grass beside her; she stares up at the sky with dark eyes watching, waiting. The first streak of light spans the entire field of her vision, and Rose feels the familiar swoop of anticipation in her stomach. The meteors come thick and fast, and she swears she can hear the hiss and fizz of their deaths as they burn out.

Her vision blurs as more and more of them streak across the sky and she hugs her arms around her stomach as the pain of losing more than just  _him_ snags in her gut. She didn’t just lose the Doctor when she fell through the Void; she lost the TARDIS, she lost the reaches of the universe, she lost the feeling of her feet on new ground. And she knows that she’d never have been able to stay in one place, that if the Dimension Cannon hadn’t worked, she’d have found some other way back to the stars, because she has never felt more alive than she does when she looks up at a brand new sky.

The meteors still zip through the night sky, trails of sparking gold behind them, and Rose lies there, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. It’s the end again, because they’ve told her that this has to be her last jump - her DNA is starting to break down, her cells are starting to shred, and Rose can finally feel it. There’s a constant sparking pain along her nerves now as the casings disintegrate and she loses entire days to it’s grip.

This is the last planet she’ll ever set foot on that’s not Earth, the last new sky she’ll ever see, and she’s going to die in agony without ever seeing him again. They’ve told her the damage is irreversible, that there’s nothing they can do except help to manage the pain. She’ll slowly lose function as her nervous system breaks down, until she can do nothing but lie in a bed on a morphine drip until she gives up.

She’s pushed hard the last few months; done jump after jump after jump, with little to no rest in between, because she knows she’s running out of time. They said she’d be bedridden by now, but Rose will not give in. She swallows the nerve-deadening pills dry and tries hard not to think about what it will be like when those stop working. She hates what they do to her, because not only can she not feel the pain, she can no longer feel anything.

She wishes, on every streaking star, that there was something,  _anything_ , that anyone could do. She wonders if the Doctor could help, if there is a miracle cure for what she has on the TARDIS, but knows instinctively, that there isn’t. She’s almost glad she’ll never get to find him, because she can’t imagine seeing him now; not being able to feel his hand in hers, because all the nerves in her hands are practically dead.

She’d have to explain, and he’d blame himself and she’d die a little more inside seeing his eyes turn dark with guilt and pain and she can’t bear even thinking about it. She knows that there’d never been any chance, because oh god, what is she but a shooting star - flaring bright for only a second - in his long and lonely life. She was never going to be anything more than a passing moment; a brilliant burst of fire that burned itself out too quickly to really matter.

The cannon beeps beside her. Rose sits up and reaches for it with fumbling fingers. It’s charged, it’ll take her back now, back to where all she has to do is die. Rose stares down at the keypad for a long moment. Above her, the meteors continue to flash in and out of existence. She looks up, watches one streak across the sky and wink out of existence just above the horizon. She decides. This will not be the last planet she sees, she will not go back to the other universe just to die. She has time yet, she can still try, and maybe, if she’s lucky, she’ll find him before she goes.

She re-programs the cannon, fingers flying over the keys and presses the ignition switch with resolve firming in her gut. For the first time in months, she feels the pain of her dying nerves recede. Exhilaration and adrenaline win out over pain always, and Rose knows just how to keep them topped up.

She stands as the countdown runs out, and fires herself through the Void. 


End file.
